rolled the man halfway over, then back. He was watching when Hargrave stood and said something into the ear of his partner and both of them looked to the street, but up, eyes again focused high behind the press gathering. Nick whispered to Susan and then backed out of the group, facing forward, watching Cameron as Jean was asking if police had any suspects in the shooting. When Cameron turned to shake his head at her, Nick slipped behind a news truck and then dodged through traffic to the other side of the street. The building was the Children's Diagnostic Center and took up most of the block. Offices were on the upper floors, clinics on the first. Nick made his way around the river side, cut through a narrow split in a six-foot ficus hedge to the back and started looking for a fire escape or maintenance ladder to the roof. Less than a dozen cars were parked in the back lot, all bunched close to a rear entrance. Not much cover, he thought, but fewer windows on this side. Halfway down the length of the building there was an interruption in the facade, an alcove with a tow-away sign and the front end of a Dumpster sticking out. Deep in the corner was the ladder he was looking for. It was one of those metal pipe jobs bolted into the side of the stucco. The first rung was five feet off the ground. Why do they do that? Nick thought. Who is that gonna stop other than some overweight burglar who can't do a pull-up? The ladder climbed up to the top edge and curled over onto the roof, and so did he.

The flat expanse up top was empty. Gray crushed stone and that instantly recognizable smell of sun-warmed tar. Nick was standing up in the open, realizing he hadn't thought this through. If he was correct in thinking the detectives were looking up here for a bullet angle, why the hell was he not thinking the shooter might still be up here? Dumb-ass.

He looked out at four big air handlers, spaced evenly across the twenty-yard length of the building, none of them tall enough to hide a man.